M6:94 — که چرا جز من نجوم بی‌هدی / قبله کردی از لئیمی و عمی

Translation: Why, instead of Me, did you make the guideless stars Your qibla, out of baseness and blindness?

Meaning: This verse poses a rhetorical, reproachful question to those who turn to transient and unguided entities like celestial bodies for direction, instead of relying on the One, True God.

Here, I see Mawlana launching a sharp and definitive critique against astrologers and naturalists—those who attribute every worldly event to celestial bodies and constellations. This perspective was exceedingly prevalent in the past; even our great philosophers considered planets to be animate and endowed with consciousness, entities with whom one could converse and from whom one could request boons. Some even resorted to worshipping these celestial bodies, while others offered prayers to them.

But Mawlana, in a tone of reproach, asks: "Why, instead of Me, did you make the guideless stars / Your qibla, out of baseness and blindness?" He speaks here of the peerless God, who is "neither eastern nor western" and is subject neither to the laws of nature nor to those beyond it. God's light transcends these classifications, whereas stars and celestial bodies are guideless and ephemeral; they are, in short, the āfilīn, "those that set." This is precisely the cry that Prophet Abraham uttered when, after beholding the star, the moon, and the sun, he declared: "I love not those that set" (lā uḥibbu al-āfilīn). Such entities cannot be a qibla, for they themselves are in need of guidance and are subject to setting and change.

Mawlana emphasizes that the reason for turning to these āfilīn stems from "baseness and blindness" (līmī wa ʿamā), meaning inner degeneracy and spiritual sightlessness. This is a moral and spiritual critique; one who looks with insight and wisdom would not turn towards that which is itself in decline. Such a person would turn their face towards the One "who created the heavens and the earth" (faṭara al-samāwāti wa al-arḍ)—the creator of all these setting things. In Mawlana's view, God's hand is continuously flowing and active in the world, and only He should be regarded as the true qibla, not stars that lack the light of guidance and are themselves condemned to rotation and decay. This is Mawlana's battle against all forms of polytheism, subtle or overt, that distances humanity from the truth of existence.

Key takeaways

• Mawlana reproaches astrologers and naturalists for turning to transient celestial bodies instead of God.
• The 'guidelss stars' are the āfilīn (those that set), whose worship Prophet Abraham rejected; that which declines cannot be a qibla.
• The reason for this inclination towards the āfilīn is 'baseness and blindness' (līmī wa ʿamā), an ethical-spiritual critique of ignorance.
• Only God, who is 'neither eastern nor western' and ever-active in the world, is worthy of being the true qibla and ultimate reliance.